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CBS let Donald Trump Jr. slam trans athletes & lie without challenging him

Donald Trump Jr. is a balding white man with facial scruff in a blue blazer on a morning talk show.
Donald Trump Jr. Photo: YouTube screencapture

Earlier today, Donald Trump Jr. went on CBS This Morning to promote his new book Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us. In the process, he steamrolled the show’s three hosts who let him spew lies and anti-transgender talking points without any pushback.

He falsely asserted that Republicans haven’t been able to ask questions of impeachment witnesses, that his father released “a transcript” of his alleged quid-pro-quo call with Ukraine (the White House released a summary of the call) and that his family has never financially benefited from taxpayer-funded travel.

Related: Trump Jr. bragged that his penis is bigger than his dad’s

When asked what he’s personally doing to heal the country’s political divide, Trump Jr. said:

I’d like to see [the American political climate] get back to normalcy. I don’t know that that exists today… When I look at the media bias, it makes it very hard for my father to do his job. For example, last weekend [Abu Bakr] Al Baghdadi, the leader and founder of ISIS… it’s an important point to make because you can’t go back to normal when The Washington Post is going around and calling the leader of ISIS, a guy that lit people on fire in cages who throws homosexuals off of buildings is “an austere religious scholar.” You need some grownups in he room there too because that’s not working.

It’s worth noting that 24 children have died in Trump’s ICE detainment facilities at the U.S. southern border and thousands more have said they were sexually abused while in detainment. Also, U.S. hate crimes have spiked to record levels under Trump’s leadership, thanks in part to his speech and policies against immigrants and trans people.

When asked again what he’s doing to create healing rhetoric, Trump Jr. lashed out at trans athletes:

I think we’re actually all pretty let — live and let live. So is my father. But today, you know, it’s sort of the “woke” goalposts. They keep moving. The example I use in the book is obviously as it relates to, you know, trans women in sports. Identify how you want. I think it’s wonderful. I don’t care. When you start saying, “Okay, I’m a man. I’ve become a woman. I’m now winning national championships, setting weightlifting world records,” you know, displacing women who’ve worked their entire lives to get to a point in their careers, I think that’s wrong. And that’s the point. The goalposts never stop moving.

Trump Jr. is correct that social justice activists continue to create new ways for society to become more inclusive — it’s called “progress.” But his transphobic scaremongering about trans athletes entering women’s competitions is taken right out of the trans exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) playbook.

Truth is that all athletes deserve the ability to compete, but neither Trump Jr. nor his father are interested in creating solutions and dialogue that would help make that happen — they’d just rather trans people weren’t a part of public life at all.

Here is Trump Jr.’s appearance on CBS This Morning:

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